Toussaint's Private French Notebook

French Concepts

Otherwise, we can simply focus on regular verbs, and the ways in which people normally handle their conjugation.

If the infinitive of a regular French verb ends in –er, -ir, or –re, you simply learn to conjugate one verb in each of the groups, and you will know how to conjugate many other regular verbs. The following charts have the conjugation of the five simple tenses of three common regular verbs: parler (to speak), finir (to finish), and vendre (to sell).

Regular -er Verb Endings

Tense (stem)

je

tu

il / elle / on

nous

vous

ils / elles

Present (parl)

-e

-es

-e

-ons

-ez

-ent

Imperfect (parl)

-ais

-ais

-ait

-ions

-iez

-aient

Future (parler)

-ai

-as

-a

-ons

-ez

-ont

Conditional (parler)

-ais

-ais

-ait

-ions

-iez

-aient

Subjunctive (parl)

-e

-es

-e

-ions

-iez

-ent

Regular -ir Verb Endings

Tense (stem)

je

tu

il / elle / on

nous

vous

ils / elles

Present (fini)

-s

-s

-t

-ssons

-ssez

-ssent

Imperfect (finiss)

-ais

-ais

-ait

-ions

-iez

-aient

Future (finir)

-ai

-as

-a

-ons

-ez

-ont

Conditional (finir)

-ais

-ais

-ait

-ions

-iez

-aient

Subjunctive (finiss)

-e

-es

-e

-ions

-iez

-ent

Regular -re Verb Endings

Tense (stem)

je

tu

il / elle / on

nous

vous

ils / elles

Present (vend)

-s

-s

(nothing)

-ons

-ez

-ent

Imperfect (vend)

-ais

-ais

-ait

-ions

-iez

-aient

Future (vendr)

-ai

-as

-a

-ons

-ez

-ont

Conditional (vendr)

-ais

-ais

-ait

-ions

-iez

-aient

Subjunctive (vend)

-e

-es

-e

-ions

-iez

-ent

Conjugating Compound Tenses with Regular French Verbs

To conjugate French compound tenses, you need an auxiliary verb, usually avoir (to have) or être (to be), plus the past participle of the desired verb. The following charts show examples of French compound tenses conjugated with the past participles of parler (to speak) with avoir as the auxiliary in one charts, and arriver (to arrive) with être as the auxiliary in the other chart.

Passé Composé – I have donePluperfect – I had doneFuture Perfect – I will have donePast Conditional – I would have donePast Subjuncitve – If I had done

Creating Compound Tenses with the Auxiliary Avoir (Parler)

Tense

je

tu

il / elle / on

nous

vous

ils / elles

Passé Composé

ai parlé

as parlé

a parlé

avons parlé

avez parlé

ont parlé

Pluperfect

avais parlé

avais parlé

avait parlé

avions parlé

aviez parlé

avaient parlé

Future Perfect

aurai parlé

auras parlé

aura parlé

aurons parlé

aurez parlé

auront parlé

Past Conditional

aurais parlé

aurais parlé

aurait parlé

aurions parlé

auriez parlé

auraient parlé

Past Subjunctive

aie parlé

aies parlé

ait parlé

ayons parlé

ayez parlé

aient parlé

Creating Compound Tenses with the Auxiliary Être (Arriver)

Tense

je

tu

il / elle / on

nous

vous

ils / elles

Passé Composé

suis arrivé (e)

es arrivé (e)

est arrivé (e)

sommes arrivés (es)

êtes arrivé (e)(s) (es)

sont arrivés (es)

Pluperfect

étais arrivé (e)

étais arrivé (e)

était arrivé (e)

étions arrivés (es)

étiez arrivé (e) (s) (es)

étaient arrivés (es)

Future Perfect

serai arrivé (e)

seras arrivé (e)

sera arrivé (e)

serons arrivés (es)

serez arrivé (e) (s) (es)

seront arrivés (es)

Past Conditional

serais arrivé (e)

serais arrivé (e)

serait arrivé (e)

serions arrivés (es)

seriez arrivé (e) (s) (es)

seraient arrivés (es)

Past Subjunctive

sois arrivé (e)

sois arrivé (e)

soit arrivé (e)

soyons arrivés (es)

soyez arrivé (e) (s) (es)

soient arrivés (es)

Imperative Forms of French Verbs

In French, the imperative mood expresses an order, request, or directive and is created with regular verbs by using the verb directly. The imperative drops the subject, uses the present tense of a verb and uses the conjugations of three subject pronouns: tu (familiar), vous (unfamiliar, older, a group, or a superior), and nous (when including yourself in the group).

Regular -er, -ir, and -re verbs follow the same pattern in commands as shown in the following example, along with an example of a command using a pronominal verb and pronoun.

The past participle, called le participe passé in French, is very similar in French and English. The French past participle usually ends in -é, -i, or -u, while its English equivalent usually ends in -ed or -en. The past participle has three main uses in French:

1. With an auxiliary verb, the past participle forms compound tenses such as the passé composé:

2. With être, the past participle is used to conjugate the French passive voice.Le ménage est fait tous les jours – The housework is done every day.Cefilm sera suivid’une discussion – This movie will be followed by a discussion.

3. Standing alone or with être, the French past participle may be an adjective. Note that in some instances, the participe passé must be translated by the English present participle.

Note: When used in the passive voice or as an adjective, the past participle needs to agree in gender and number with the word it modifies, following the normal rules of adjective agreement. In the compound tenses, it may or may not need to agree, depending on certain factors.

Reflexive verbs in French are certain verbs that refer to the fact that the subject of the sentence is doing something to himself/herself/itself (the verb is “reflecting” back on the subject of the sentence). In French, certain pronouns must be included when you’re constructing a sentence with a reflexive verb, even if the same sentence in English would not contain “myself/yourself/itself, etc”.

The reflexive pronouns

je me

nous nous

tu te

vous vous

il/elle se

ils/elles se

Common French Reflexive Verbs

Remember, reflexive verbs have mostly to do with emotion, one’s body, or location. The following is not a comprehensive French reflexive verbs list but gives examples of the most frequently used reflexive verbs:

To Approach
Verb: s’approcher de
Conjugation: regular -er veb
Used in a sentence: Je m’approche de la maison. I approach the house.

The French past perfect, or pluperfect, (plus-que-parfait) is used to indicate an action in the past that occurred before another action in the past. The latter can be either mentioned in the same sentence or implied.

There are other forms of the past in French. Let me introduce you to a visual mnemonic for past perfect/pluperfect:

Pluperfect/Past Perfect (plus-que-parfait) – Ava had flown Avions to the EU, and the ETA was pluperfect, EZ and convenient.

The pluperfect is the tense which gave me the most trouble when conjugating. It doesn’t help that it is also known as the Past Perfect (which means it contains the past participle element, which means there are two auxiliary verb conjugations to worry about). There are two words which anchor the mnemonic, Avions and Pluperfect. Either one, for me, triggers the entire mnemonic, which in turn solves the riddle of the conjugation, and the English equivalents.

**********

In the Passé Composé (Present Perfect in English) form, many verbs conjugate with être, and must match in gender and number of persons. Passé Composé is the most common French past tense, and expresses an action completed in the past, repeated a number of times in the past, or a series of actions completed in the past. The equivalent of Passé Composé in English, is the simple past (I danced), present perfect (I have danced) and past emphatic (I did dance).

The Passé Composé uses “avoir” for every verb except 17 verbs that use “être”. There is a memory tool…DR MRS VANDERTRAMPP (Devenir Revenir Monter Rester Sortir Venir Aller Naître Descendre Entrer Retourner Tomber Rentrer Arriver Mourir Partir), and it’s easier to memorize these verbs than to make sense of anything else. Many teachers rely on this picture:

Many idioms use avoir, and the meaning differs from “to have” and can often be confused with “to be”. The “Il y a” expressions are often confusing for this reason. “Il y a” means “there is” or “there are” although “a” is the conjugated “to have”.

In the Passé Composé, Être and Avoir are used with the imperfect form of other verbs, to create compound tenses that describe past actions which have completed.

This visual not only tells you the English equivalent, but reminds you that an accent mark at the end of the past particle tells you that it is one of the perfect tenses. You will see this tense so often, that you will probably have no problem with the je, tu, il, and vous conjugations, but you may be tricked by the nous and ils conjugations. The mnemonic addresses that with Avon and son, color linking mnemonic words to the conjugations.

We’ve now coverered Past Perfect (Pluperfect), and Passé Composé. There is also Past Imperfect.

****

Normally the Past Imperfect describes actions that are on-going. A good example of this is the Past Imperfect, “je mangeais”, which means I was eating (on going action). The Passé Composé version, “j’ai mangé”, translates to the English equivalent Present Perfect of “I have eaten”, and the action is completed. That’s the simplest way to differentiate between Passé Composé and Past Imperfect.

Here is a visual mnemoic for the Past Imperfect (imparfait):

Imperfect (imparfait) – She was eating a parfait, it is imperfect, how I-ronic.

For an American, a parfait is something they sell at McDonald’s, and it contains yogurt or ice cream, and is adorned with nuts, syrup, etc. What could be more perfect? The irony is that as “she” was eating one, it is imperfect, and therefore ironic. The mnemonic attempts to reveal the conjugation trickery of the Imperfect tense. Through the use of colors, the strange “a” that appears in je, tu, il and ils is shown. The “is” and “it” are revealed in the je, tu, and il conjugations, and finally, the word I-ronic reminds the conjugator, to make sure they slip an “i” into each conjugation.

***

The final past tense in French is one that is used mainly in literature, and it is Passé Simple.

Passé Simple is a third tense used to describe past actions, and is described as being the literary equivalent of Passé Composé, because it is used in formal writing and formal speech. Passé Simple will often look strange, and the verbs are conjugated dependant on the verb’s endings (ER, IR/RE, and irregular).

This was the most difficult mnemonic to create, and also the most intricate one. This mnemonic is not as intuitive as the others, and may require you to use it several times before it’s automatic. The mnemonic does contain all of the conjugations for -er verbs, as seen by the colors. The ending triggers the peculiar -ir and -re verb conjugations for je, tu, and Il/elle/on. Notice the accent above the “Nous” and “Vous” conjugations? I have no idea how to trigger that in this mnemonic, so you simply have to note that the accent makes the Past Simple not that simple.

Okay, you’ve been working hard at Duolingo, and have gotten a number of the modules completed. You’ve learned a lot, but every now and then a problem arises.

French has concepts that you need to know, and here is a list of the ones that challenged me, with some explanations and links to help you figure them out. This is the order in which I encountered them:

Nasal sounds : As an English speaker, I would hear someone say a sound or word is “nasal” but what does that really mean? Watch this short video, and it starts to make sense.

The accent aigu ´ (acute accent) can only be on an E. At the beginning of a word, it often indicates that an S used to follow that vowel, e.g., étudiant (student). This is not always the case though. The acute accent makes the sound change to “ay” (more open sounding).

The grave accent ` (accent grave) points to the left and upward. It can appear over any vowel, but it only alters pronunciation when over the letter e. While, depending on context, unaccented e‘s may be pronounced several different ways, e‘s with grave accents are always pronounced ehh, like the e in the English word set.

The accent circonflexe ˆ (circumflex) can be found sitting on top of an A, E, I, O, or U. The circumflex usually indicates that an S used to follow that vowel, e.g., forêt (forest). It also serves to distinguish between homographs; e.g., du (contraction of de + le) vs dû (past participle of devoir). The circumflex, or the hat (î, â, ê) has absolutely no effect on pronunciation.

The accent tréma ¨ (dieresis or umlaut) can be on an E, I, or U. It is used when two vowels are next to each other and both must be pronounced, e.g., naïve, Saül. With the dieresis over the i, it becomes [ai].

The cédille ¸ (cedilla) is found only under the letter C. It changes a hard C sound (like K) into a soft C sound (like S), e.g., garçon. The cedilla is never placed in front of E or I, because C always sounds like an S in front of these vowels.

Definite Articles – Like the English ‘the’, they are used when the noun is specific. Le is masculine, la is feminine, and les is plural of both genders. The problem you may have is that “le” sounds like “lo” or “luh”, and “les” sound like “lay”. Oh and you’ll see l’ before a word beginning in a vowel or the silent “h” which is treated like the “h” doesn’t exist. The word may be feminine or masculine, like l’elephant, you just won’t know from the definite article (elephant is masculine by the way).

While I’m discussing tricky pronunciations, I want to toss in this pronunciation chart that I created:

Indefinite Articles – They introduce nouns that are not specific. They are translated as ‘a’ or ‘an’ in English. They are simply un(masc), une (fem), and des (plural). The pronunciation of “un” is like getting hit in the gut unexpectantly, and “une” is the sound you make when it actually hurts. This instructor teaches you “un”, and you may like watching her pronunciation videos, and here is a quick one:

Partitive Articles –They are used to introduce “mass nouns”, which are nouns that are conceived of as a mass of indeterminate quantity. They are usually translated as ‘some’ in English. You’ve seen them with food and drinks. They are du (masc), de la (fem), and del (plural). Of course there is also de l’ before a vowel or “h” starting word.

If you’re eating food, you better put a “de”, “de + le = du”, “de + les = des” (where applicable) or you will be wrong. You are not drinking wine, you’re drinking of the wine, and eating of the cheese/bread, etc. Of course, when you’re translating back into English, you use “some” or drop the modifier completely. Vous buvez du vin ->You drink some wine or You drink wine. If you put “You drink the wine”….you get dinked by Duolingo (and lose a heart). Eventually this will drive you crazy. By the way, when you see “de” say “du” or “dur”, or the same as “du”. Don’t believe me? Click both on the link below:

Some will say that “some” is “de, du, des, de la” while “all” is “le, l’, la”.

I drink wine -> je bois du vin (some)

I like wine -> j’aime le vin (all)

Demonstrative Determiners – Are used to point out something, typically something within sight. They may be translated in English as ‘this’, ‘that’,’these’, ‘those’ depending on the number (singular or plural) and proximity (near or far). They are ce (masc), cet (masc before a vowel word), cette (fem), and ces (plural). Oh, you used “cettes” a few times? Welcome to the club of “not knowing there is no such word in French”. Their pronunciation will trip you up at first. Ce – pronounced “se”, cet – pronounced “seht”, cette – pronounced “seht”, and ces – pronounced “say”.

Capitalizations – French and English capitalization are quite different, as it is much less common in French. Many words that must be capitalized in English cannot be in French, so read through this lesson to make sure that you’re not over-capitalizing your French.

What’s “that”? – Using the words celui, celle, ci, ceci, cela, and là for the various times you need “that” will drive you crazy. What I’ve learned is that celui is masculine, and its plural is ceux. Celle is feminine, and its plural is celles. Ceci is the contraction of ce + ici (this + here). Cela is the contraction of ce + là (this + there). Ci indicates a “close” reference, and is short for the already short “ici”, which makes sense that “ci” refers to…this (something close)….while Là indicates a more “remote” reference, i.e. that. Comparisons like to use celui-ci and celle-ci depending on masc/fem.

Negation – “Non” is a one-word negative answer to a yes or no question; while “pas”, by itself, negates part of a sentence. Rien (nothing), personne (no one), and jamais (never) may also be used in one-word answers:. Often a verb will be turned negative by constructing a sentence as follows:

The dots are where the verb goes, and if the verb starts with a vowel, ne becomes n’. Personne and rien are also negative pronouns, that may be used at the beginning of a sentence, as pronoun subjects, or followed by ne/n’.

When “plus” has a negative meaning (no more), you never pronounce the final ‘s’.

Uses of “En” :

1 – En replaces a QUANTITY: This quantity is likely to be introduce by a partitive article “De, du, de la, de l’, des”, or a number such as “un, une, trois, vingt-huit”… or a fraction “un quart”… or an adverb of quantity “beaucoup de, un peu de”… or an expression of quantity “un kilo de, un litre de, une boîte de…”. Examples:

The “de, du , des…” often comes from the verb meaning that this particular verb is going to be followed by “de”, and that is why you’d be using a “de” there. This is the case for my examples “rêver de” and “parler de”. So, in order to master EN, you should really learn the most common verbs followed by de in French and train on making sentences using EN with these verbs. When the “de, du, des…” introduce a person, then you must use a stress pronoun (moi, toi, lui, elle, nous, vous, eux, elles), Je rêve de Jean = je rêve de lui

3 – En = strong liaison and glidings: Now with “en”, it’s important to note that it’s followed by a strong liaison, and usually part of expressions that glide a lot in spoken French: Il y en a = yan na, Il n’y en a pas = yan na pa

So the negative form is pronounced almost the same way – only the pas (or plus, aucun..) will tell you it’s negative. A lot of French people would do a mistake and write “j’en n’ai pas” when it is actually “Je n’en ai pas”, just because the liaison with “en” in N is so strong that is sounds like the negative, and because we are so accustom to writing “n’ai pas”… It actually calls for a big effort to write “je n’en ai pas”, because the spoken glided French sounds like “jan nay pa”…

4 – En = preposition or adverb? Watch out that “en” can also be a PREPOSITION or an ADVERB, having different meanings:

The “à, au, aux, à la à l’” often comes from the verb meaning that this particular verb is going to be followed by “à”, and that is why you’d be using a “à” there. This is the case for my examples “penser à” and “réfléchir à”. So, in order to master Y, you should really learn the most common verbs followed by à in French. And train on making sentences using Y with these verbs.

The “a” is the verb “avoir” and can be conjugated: “il y avait, il n’y aura pas…”

The pronunciation in glided spoken French is quite different from the written form:

Il y a = ya,
Il n’y a pas de = yapad
Il n’y aura pas de = yorapad.

Uses for “à” – à : to / at / in – is a preposition, which is a word which precedes a noun (or a pronoun) to show the noun’s (or the pronoun’s) relationship to another word in the sentence). There is no equivalent English word.

In the passive infinitive: À louer : for rent, Je n’airien à lire : I have nothing to read.

Why is there a “t” in “Comment va-t-elle?” – Many Sentences use a –t– to avoid the clash of two vowels, allowing the sounds to be easier to understand and pronounce. “Comment va-t-elle?” (How is she?) uses a combination of inversion (switching the order of subject and verb) and the phonetic “-t-” in between.

Other Examples: Mange-t-il la viande? Does he eat meat?

Leur, Les & Lui – Lui means him or her and leur means them, regardless of group gender. We use these indirect objects when the verb goes before an “à” :

The à is dropped, and the indirect object (lui, leur) is moved before the verb. If the indirect objects are pronouns, you do not use lui or leur.

i.e. Il va contacter ses parents –> Il va les contacter.

Instead of « leur », we use « les » for “them”. If we try to substitute direct objects (direct objects replace the people or things that receive the action of the verb in a sentence), we use object pronouns to replace nouns.

If the noun to be replaced is masculine (such as le père, which means the father), the pronoun must be masculine (le). If the noun to be replaced is feminine (such as la voiture, which means the car), the pronoun must be feminine (la). If the noun to be replaced is plural masculine or feminine (such as ses enfants, which means his/her children), the pronoun must be plural (les).

Conjunctions – These are 7 coordinating conjunctions in French: “mais”, “ou”, “et”, “donc”, “or”, “ni”, “car”. Those are invariable words that are used to join words or clauses that have equal value. There are also Subordinating conjunctions, are used to join a subordinating clause (dependent clause) to main clauses. To read more, go here:

Jusqu’à vs. Jusque – It’s all about which preposition you use after the “until”, and if it starts with a vowel or not. Because the French do not link a vowel to another vowel. That’s why there are: jusqu’à, jusqu’au, jusqu’où, jusqu’en, jusqu’ici, etc…If the preposition starts with a consonant then you have to use “jusque”.

“Y” vs. “En” – We covered both individually, but often on tests you will have to choose to use one or the other. How do they differ? Y and en are both pronouns that go before the verb. Y (ee) means “it” or “there”. En (awn) means “some” or “some of them”, or “of it”. They replace prepositional phrases.

In French, the phrases will begin with à (or any contraction of it), en, sur, sous, chez, devant, derrière, dans, etc. for y; and de (or any contraction of it) or a number for en.

They cannot replace people unless the person is introduced with an indefinite article, partitive, number or quantity. Sometimes y and en have no direct translation in English. Remember that they go before the verb, except in a command, in which they follow the verb and are connected with a hyphen. The -er verbs also add the -s they lost when forming the you (familiar) command.

Lequel vs. Quel – Lequel is a pronoun that replaces the adjective quel and the noun it modifies. It expresses “Which one?” as a question, but “which” is a statement (usually preceded by a preposition).

Chaque vs. Chacun – Chaque functions as an adjective, chacun is a pronoun. Examples: “chaque jour” means “each/every day”, whereas “chacun” means “each one”, usually in the sense of referring to a group of individuals rather than a group as a singular unit.

Manquer – The French verb manquer (to miss) is a word order nightmare, because “I miss you” translates not as je te manque but rather tu me manques (literally, “you are missing to me.”) Once you understand the proper French word order, you’ll never miss this one again.

Que, Qui, Où, Dont, Lequel – These are relative pronouns, and their use is dependent on the grammar that comes before them.

Qui replaces the subject (person or thing) in the dependent clause, replaces an indirect object referring to a person after a preposition.

Que replaces the direct object in the dependent clause.

Lequel replaces a n indirect object refering to a thing after a preposition.

Dont replaces any person or thing after “de”, and may indicate possession.

Où is used to indicate a place or time.

When you first start learning how to join clauses, it is common to think of que as “that” or “which”, and qui as “who” or “whom”, but the use is not based on English meaning but rather grammar usage.

“à” & “de” – Prepositions are words which link two related parts of a sentence. In this module, you may get frustrated with the variety of uses for the French prepositions “à” and “de”. Generally speaking, “à” means to, at, or in, while “de” means of or from.

Savoir vs. Connaître – French has two verbs which can be translated by the English verb “to know”: savoir and connaître. This can be confusing to English speakers, but in fact there are distinct differences in meaning and usage for the two verbs.

Savoir is used when you know a fact, know something by heart or when you know how to do something.

Connaître has two meanings, and they are related to knowing a person, or being familiar with a person/thing.

Que vs. Qui – You will see “que” for the word “that” and “qui” for the word “who/whom” when you have subordinate clauses (two sentences with one introducing the other). To join the clauses there must be a “que”, i.e. Je sais que tu es intelligent. In English “that” is optional, so “He thinks I like dogs” prompts the English speaker to write, “Il pense j’aime les chiens” instead of the correct, “Il pense que j’aime les chiens”. If you are translating, “I want him to do it”, the sentence is actually the French, “je veux qu’il le fasse (I want that he does it). The requirement of using “que” and “qui” and “qu’il” and on and on, is an English speaker mystery until you realize this fact. Behind the question “Est-ce que John est ici?” lurks that strange “que”, because the sentence really is…. “Is it that John is here?” not ”Is John here?”. DuoLingo will even ask you to translate the English version and you have to remember to subordinate clauses and join them together with “que”.

Qui and que are the most often confused relative pronouns, probably because one of the first things French students learn is that qui means “who” and que means “that” or “what.”
In fact, this is not always the case. The choice between qui and que as a relative pronoun has nothing to do with the meaning in English, and everything to do with how the word is used; that is, what part of the sentence it is replacing.

Qu’est-ce que = what (“what” is the direct object-thing) Ex. Qu’est-ce que tu fais? What are you doing?

Qui est ce qui = who (“who” is the subject) Ex. Qui-est-ce qui est à la porte? Who is it that is at the door?

Qui est ce que = who (“who” is the direct object-person) Ex. Qui-est-ce que vous avez-vu? Who is it that you have seen?

Weather (Faire) – References to the weather, using “faire” i.e. faire beau (nice weather) do not make sense to an English speaker, but it certainly does to romantic language speakers. Il fait soleil (It’s sunny). Il faisait froid (It was cold). It’s uncomfortable to English speakers, but you eventually start using “faire” and life gets easier.

Other Faire Uses – Faire is a powerful and often used verb because it means to do or to make. Along with to have (avoir) and to be (etre), it is a verb you will see in many conjugations. Faire is not used as “to make” when it is followed by an adjective. Ex. Ça me rend heureux. – That makes me happy (here we use rendre). It is also not used in making a decision, Ex. J’ai pris une décision (here we used prendre).

When using the verb faire in the present tense, it is conjugated as follows:

je fais, tu fais, il fait, nous faisons, vous faites, ils font

Using faire in the imperfect is used to describe the past tense as an ongoing state or implies incomplete or repetitive action. Many French expressions use this form of faire. When using faire in imperfect, conjugate it as follows:

You may also need to use faire to refer to things you will do or may have to do. Conjugate faire in the future tense as follows:

je ferai, tu feras, il fera, nous ferons, vous ferez, ils feront

Time Warp – Not to be outdone…time has a lot of quirks…like “It is [insert day, i.e. Monday] suddenly becomes “Nous sommes lundi”….we are Monday…..

Bon, Bien, Meilleur, Mieux – Bon (good) is an adjective. Although it has an irregular feminine form, bonne, the plural is formed regularly by adding an -s to the masculine or feminine adjective. Bien (well, really, very) is an adverb. The adjective bon modifies a noun, whereas the adverb bien modifies verbs, adjectives or other adverbs.

Comparisons with bon and bien are not formed regularly using ‘plus … que’ (more … than). Instead the French use meilleur(e)(s) que as the adverb (like bon), and mieux que as the adjective (like bien).

Est-ce que vs. Est-ce – These words show up everywhere, and they mean “is it that”. Why do you see “que” sometimes and then you don’t? “Est-ce que” is followed by a verb.

Ex. “Est-ce que tu travailles ? Is it that you work?

“Est-ce” is followed by a noun, or a pronoun.

Ex. “Est-ce un oiseau ? Is it a bird?

Possessive Pronouns – Possessive Pronouns refer to an object or person by identifying its possessor….mine, ours, yours, his/hers, or theirs. They have a masculine form or feminine form, as well as a singular and plural form. No big deal right? The problem comes when you notice that this is not always true.

The ones that make sense are:

Mine has le mien (sing. masc.) and la mienne (sing. fem.), as well as plurals les miens and les miennes.

Possessive Adjectives – Making things even worse is the confusion between the possessive pronouns we just reviewed and possessive adjectives, like my, your, his/her/its, our, and their. These are words that take the place of articles to indicate to whom or to what something belongs. They also have seemingly random applications.

My has the masculine mon, feminine ma, and plural mes.Your (familiar) has the masculine ton, feminine ta, and plural tes.His/Her/Its has masculine son, feminine sa, and plural ses.Your has votre for both masculine and feminine and the plural is vos.Our is similar, and has notre for both singulars, and nos for plural.Their has leur for both singulars and leurs for plural.

Liasions – This is where the French speaker does not normally say the silent consonant at the end of a word, but then does when they encounter word that begins with a vowel. They’ll use the last letter as the first letter for that vowel starting word. It seems strange, but it helps their word fluency, and you’ll eventually get used to it.

Elision – In English, the words “I’m”, “aren’t” and “don’t” are examples of elision. Sounds (and letters in the written form) have been removed to make the words shorter.

Ex. C’est, j’aime, s’il vous plait, l’horloge

Usually, only one-syllable words ending in E can be elided, but elle, si, and words ending in que also elide. However, si only elides before il and ils, so you must write s’il, but cannot write s’elle.

Enchaînement – similar to liaisons, it is when the ending consonant sounds are pushed onto the next word if it begins in a vowel. For instance: elle est is pronounced like “eh-lay”. Mange une pomme is pronounced like “mahn-jun-pom”.

Just Because – There are many words for because, “à cause de”, “grâce à”, car, and “parce que”. According to comments: “Parce que” can be used at the beginning of a sentence or in the middle of the sentence whereas “car” can only be used in the middle of a sentence. “Car” cannot be used to start the phrase, i.e. “Parce qu’il pleut je ne sors pas”, “Je ne sors pas parce qu’il pleut”,”Je ne sors pas car il pleut”. All three mean the same. You cannot say, “Car il pleut je soirs”.

Idiomatic Verbs – You’ve seen them, they are the s’ or m’ before a verb. You thought you knew what that verb meant, but now things have changed. The verb is “reflexive”, meaning that the action is done to oneself, themself, myself.. . i.e. “s’en aller” means “to go away”, but “aller” means “to go”…sure that kind of makes sense…but how about “se demander” meaning “to wonder” while “demander” means “to ask/order”? You need to find the list of reflexive verbs and sort them out…yourself.

Avant vs. Devant – They both mean “before” but avant has to do with time and devant has to do with position. i.e. Before you go to lunch, get in front of me -> Avant d’aller déjeuner, aller au-devant de moi.

Il faut que je te parle – I have to talk to you (literally: It has to that I speak to you)

Falloir is stronger and somewhat more formal than devoir ; it expresses necessity. Falloir can be used with an infinitive or the subjunctive. Because it’s an impersonal verb, falloir does not conjugate for different subjects. In order to specify the person who needs to do something, you can either use the subjunctive or an indirect object pronoun with the infinitive.

“Il y a” – What is going on there? Il y a is made up of three words: il – the subject “it”, y – the adverbial pronoun “there”, a – the third person singular present tense of avoir (to have). The whole thing adds up to a meaning of “there is/there are” in English.

Depuis vs. Il y a – Depuis and il y a are both used to describe time in the past, but depuis means “since” or “for” while il y a means “ago.” If you had studied this lesson one year ago ( il y a un an ), you would have already known how to use these expressions correctly for a year (depuis un an).

Depuis vs. Pendant (Time) – In French the present tense is used with ‘depuis’ whereas in English we use a past tense. ‘Depuis’ can mean ‘for’ and ‘since’, and is used in a sentence involving a time element, like:

When describing people and things with être in French, you usually can’t use a personal subject pronoun like “elle”. Instead, you must use the impersonal pronoun “ce”, which can also mean “this” or “that”. Note that “ce” is invariable, so it can never be “ces sont”. You’re going to miss this one in Duolingo a few times before you finally accept this fact.

If an adjective, adverb, or both appear after être, then use the personal pronoun.

Elle est belle. — She is beautiful. (Or “It is beautiful.”)
Il est très fort. — He is very strong. (Or “It is very strong.”)

As you know, nouns generally need determiners, but one important exception is that professions, nationalities, and religions can act as adjectives after être. This is optional; you can also choose to treat them as nouns.

He is a doctor. — Il est médecin. / C’est un médecin.
However, c’est should be used when using an adjective to make a general comment about (but not describe) a thing or situation. In this case, use the masculine singular form of the adjective.

This grammatical structure is called the pronominal voice, and it’s common in French but rare in English. That’s because we usually omit the direct object and use the active voice. The main things to know about pronominal verbs:

#1: The reflexive pronoun always matches the subject. The reflexive pronouns are: me/te/se/nous/vous/se. This is why you see a lot of nous nous and vousvous.

Se is used for all third-persons: him, her, them, Billy-Bob, etc. Se becomes s’ when followed by a vowel or mute H.

Reciprocal verbs, where there are multiple subjects acting together. For example, Ilss’adorent = They adore each other.

Use of the pronoun “se” – The third person pronoun “se” in French has several different functions: reflexives (il se voit dans le miroir “he sees himself in the mirror”), reciprocals (ils se battent “they fight each other”), subjectives or expletives (elle se moque de lui “she makes fun of him”), and passives or middles (le fromage se mange “cheese is eaten”).

Idiomatic pronominal verbs, which are standard transitive verbs that take on a special meaning when you use them reflexively.

#4: Most reflexive verbs have to do with parts of the body, clothing, personal circumstance, or location…

Imperfect and Passé Composé – Did you know that Avoir, Devoir, Pouvoir, Savoir, and Vouloir change meanings, according to whether they are used in the imperfect or the passé composé? Would have been nice to know, oui?

Did Someone Mention “Passé Composé” – The Passé Composé uses “avoir” for every verb except 17 verbs that use “être”. There is a memory tool…DR MRS P. VANDERTRAMP (Devenir Revenir Monter Rester Sortir PasserVenir Aller Naître Descendre Entrer Retourner Tomber Rentrer Arriver Mourir Partir), and it’s easier to memorize these verbs than to make sense of anything else. In addition to these, at least one other verb is conjugated with être:

Il faut que je te parle – I have to talk to you (literally: It has to that I speak to you)

Adverb Placement – Adverbs are placed directly before the adjective or adverb that they modify. Adverbs are usually placed immediately after the conjugated verb. If the verb is negative, the adverb is placed after the negation.

Superlative use of adverbs indicates “the most”, and “the least” . In French as in English, the superlative is a way to express a maximum or minimum quality or capacity, like ‘the fastest’, ‘the least fast’. To form the superlative of an adverb, the masculine singular form of the definite article is always used: le, followed by plus (more) or moins (less) before the adverb. The superlative of an adverb has only one form. Le mieux (the best) and le moins bien (the least well) are the superlative forms of the adverb bien (well).

Il y a vs. Voici/Violà – Il y a and voilà are two ways of introducing nouns. They are translated into English as ‘there is / there are’ or ‘here is / here are.’ Il y a + noun usually indicates the existence of a person or a thing in the context of a particular setting. It is commonly translated as ‘there is’ or ‘there are.’ Voilà + noun and voici + noun are commonly translated as ‘here is / here are’. They are used to indicate the sudden appearance of something or someone, to introduce people or ideas. Alternating between voici and voilà is common when referring to more than one item.

Pronomial Verbs – A pronominal verb is one that is accompanied by a reflexive pronoun. Pronominal verbs fall into three major classes based on their meaning: reflexive, idiomatic, and reciprocal. You have probably already seen the pronominal verb s’appeler (Comment t’appelles-tu? What is your name?). To conjugate pronominal verbs in the present tense, you need to pay attention to both the pronoun and the verb form.

To negate pronominal verbs, place the “ne” before the reflexive pronoun and the “pas” after the verb. When used with an auxiliary verb such as aimer (to like), the infinitive of a pronominal verb agrees with its subject. When pronominal verbs are used with parts of the body, they take the definite article (le, la, les) rather than the possessive article like in English. Example: “Pierre se lave les mains”, or “Non, je ne me rase pas”.

A third category of pronominal verbs expresses a reciprocal action between more than one person, s’aimer or se parler, for example. The English equivalent often uses the phrase ‘each other’ to represent this reciprocal action.

To form the imperative of pronominal verbs, drop the subject pronoun and then attach the reflexive pronoun with a hyphen to the right side of the verb. The reflexive pronoun te becomes toi when used in the imperative.

Modal Verbs – In English, modal verbs are non-conjugated verbs like: can, could, may, might, must, ought to, shall, should, will, would. English speakers use them a great deal, but this type of word structure does not exist in French. Instead, you can express ideas using modals verb in French, that are conjugated.

Vouloir (to want), pouvoir (to be able to) and devoir (must/shall) are called modal verbs. When used with infinitives, they act as auxiliary verbs or semi-auxiliaries. All three verbs are often found in the conditional in order to be more polite in requests and commands.

Just Leave! – The verbs partir, sortir, quitter and laisser all mean ‘to leave’ in English, but they have distinguishing nuances and uses in French. An important distinction among these verbs is the idea of transitivity. Partir and sortir are intransitive in this context; they do not take a direct object (but may be followed by a prepositional phrase). On the other hand, quitter and laisser are transitive; they take a direct object in a sentence.

It – The impersonal pronoun il (‘it’) is used in French when an action has no agent, that is, when there is no person or animate being responsible for the action. The conjugated verb is always in the third person singular, no matter what tense the impersonal verb takes. The action of the verb (pleut, ‘is raining’) is an impersonal, natural force. The impersonal pronoun il is often referred to as a ‘dummy subject’ because it fills the syntactic position of subject but doesn’t have any real meaning. Weather expression makes more sense now don’t they.

Verb Conjugations – A world of their own, so I always have a card near-by to refer to. It covers the I, he/she/it/one, you (fam), you (pl, unfam), we, and they forms of these tenses:

English speakers use “retourner”, because it sounds like “to return.” But most of the time, it is wrong. “To return” is more likely to be “revenir” or “rentrer.” “Retourner” means to go back for a limited time (often because you forgot something there).

1- Venir (To Come HERE) And Revenir (To Come Back, To Return HERE): This is a movement towards you, and where you are now.

2 – Aller – To Go: This is a movement towards a place you are NOT now.

Example: Je vais chez Pierre. I am going to Pierre’s.

“Aller” is very much used in French. We use it where English would often use “to visit” (use the link to see my blog post about this), or “to attend” and in many expressions. It’s a very irregular verb – use my audio verb drills to memorize it.

3 – Retourner (To Go Back, To Return For A Limited Time, To Run By A Place)

This means to return, or to go back, but only for a limited time, either because you have forgotten something there, or you are returning for a certain time, but leaving again.

BTW: to say to return something, we use “rendre”(give something borrowed back to someone) or “rapporter”(to return something in a shop).
Example: Je dois rendre ce livre à Pierre. (I have to return this book to Pierre).

4 – Rentrer (To Return, Go/Come Back HOME)

This means to return, to go/come back HOME or to the place where you are staying. “Rentrer” usually implies that you are not going out again.

Tout as an adverb is nearly always invariable and can be used with adverbs, adjectives, and the prepositions à and de . Invariable means that with feminine adjectives that begin with h aspiré or a consonant, tout needs agreement: it must be feminine as well as singular or plural, depending on the number of the adjective.

Used as Adjectives- Examples – Note: Normally French adverbs are invariable, but tout is a special case. It sometimes requires agreement, depending on the gender and first letter of the adjective it modifies.

1) With all masculine adjectives, singular and plural, tout is invariable:

Finally, there is the subject of French word order and it can be quite a subject to tackle, so I won’t do it all here. I do have other posts on the matter, so select that category with a strong cup of coffee.